Search

The ability to search, process, extract, evaluate and integrate information for learning purposes has clearly become the basic skills of the twenty first century. Although this process is often taken as a cognitive process, research has shown a strong connection between emotion and cognition. Recent research has suggested that positive emotions can influence the way cognitive material is organized and processed. This study examined the relationship between students' emotional states prior to task engagement to their problem-solving patterns. Results revealed that students with positive emotions, compared to the negative and mixed emotion groups, were characterized as regulatory problem-solvers who were more engaged in self-regulatory activities. Students with negative emotions were characterized by less variety of search activities as well as little or no regulatory activities.

The purpose of this study is to research how Chinese university students solve information-based problems. With the Search Performance Index as the measure of search success, participants were divided into high, medium and low-performing groups. Based on their web search logs, these three groups were compared along five dimensions of the search process for answers to the assigned tasks: frequency counts of different activities during search process, time allocation on each search activity, search patterns, search query as well as selection of information. The results documented students' varying abilities to search. The key factor that determines search performance is the effective use of search queries. Successful searchers made use of advanced search options such as extracting relevant and effective key terms from further reading, in contrast with simpler strategies by unsuccessful searchers like adding, removing unimportant words, or using synonyms. High-performing students also showed more monitoring awareness and strategy, such as changing search engines, reformulation of existing search queries as well as backtracking to task questions.

In this study, undergraduate students provided confidence ratings to predict future performance in answering questions drawn from the text before reading the text, after reading the text and after rereading the text. Self-reports of achievement goal orientations during reading and posttest scores were also collected. Student's calibration index was the comparison between their predicted posttest performance and actual performance in the posttest. Correlational analyses did not reveal any statistically detectable relationships between self-reported goal orientations and monitoring accuracy, except that bias scores were marginally related to goal orientations. Further cluster analyses and analyses of variance (ANOVA) also showed that student's multiple goal profiles failed to clearly differentiate the groups in terms of their calibration accuracy, yet performance-approach goals did distinguish overconfident from underconfident students. Plausible reasons for the finding were provided and implications for future research were also discussed. (Contains 3 tables.)

While a large body of research provides strong evidence that general self-efficacy (GSE) is a unidimensional construct, no study has been conducted to test or compare its single-factor structure with alternative factor structures (e.g., two-factor structure). The main purpose of this study was to re-examine its factor structure in a Chinese context. The Chinese version of GSE scale was administered to 195 Chinese university students. Personal identity and optimism instruments were also used to examine the predictive validity of GSE. Exploratory factor analysis determined that a two-factor solution was best fitting, explaining 54.49 % of the variance, which was reproduced reliably in the two subsamples. Through a series of factor model testing by confirmatory factor analysis, findings indicated that the two-factor structure was reliable, internally valid as demonstrated. Subsequent regression analyses also showed that only one of the two factors significantly predicted personal identity and optimism, whereas the other one was irrelevant. The findings emphasized the value of revisiting GSE as a uni- or multi-dimensional construct., Author(s): Mingming Zhou[sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Avenida da Universidade, Taipa, MacauChina Introduction Self-efficacy, defined as 'beliefs in one's capabilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive [...]

We examined achievement goals measured by self-reports and by traces (behavioral indicators) gathered as undergraduates used software tools to study a multimedia-formatted article. Traces were operationalized by tags participants applied to selections of text and hyperlinks they clicked in the article. Tags and hyperlinks were titled to represent achievement goal orientations. Self-reported goal orientations did not correlate with goals traced as actions. In separate regression models, traces of goal orientations were stronger predictors of achievement than self reports. We suggest future research include traces in studies of achievement goals because traces reflect proximal events that comprise learning activities that can supplement static orientations that are operationally defined to be indifferent to the dynamics of learning activities. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

The psychometric properties of scores from the Achievement Goal Questionnaire were examined in samples of Japanese (N = 326) and Canadian (N = 307) postsecondary students. Previous research found evidence of a four-factor structure of achievement goals in U.S. samples. Using confirmatory factor-analytic techniques, the authors found strong evidence for the four-factor structure of achievement goals in both the Canadian and Japanese populations. Subsequent multigroup structural equation modeling indicated the metric invariance of this four-factor structure across the two populations. (Contains 5 tables.)

Links between students' achievement goal orientations and learning tactics were investigated using software (gStudy) that supports a variety of learning tactics and strategies. An achievement goal questionnaire was administered to 307 students enrolled in an introductory educational psychology course. Data tracing study tactics were logged for 80 of these students who prepared for a test by studying a textbook chapter presented as a multimedia document. Using correlations and canonical correlations, we found relationships between goal orientations and activity traces indicating different forms of cognitive engagement. Notably, mastery goal orientation (approach or avoidance) was negatively related to amount of highlighting, a study tactic that is theorized to be less effective than summarizing and other forms of elaborative annotation for assembling and integrating knowledge. (Contains 5 tables.)

Various cross-cultural researchers state that autonomy is not valued in Eastern cultures and, hence, is unlikely to predict optimal study functioning and well-being. In contrast, self-determination theory (SDT; R. M. Ryan & E. L. Deci, 2000) maintains that autonomous or volitional study motivation is universally important and should predict better learning and higher well-being, even among Chinese students. Two studies were conducted to shed light on this controversial issue. Findings from both studies indicated that autonomous study motivation positively predicts adaptive learning attitudes, academic success, and personal well-being, whereas controlled motivation was associated with higher drop-out rates, maladaptive learning attitudes, and ill-being. In addition, Study 2 revealed that parental autonomy support versus psychological control is related to more adaptive learning strategies and higher well-being and that these effects were mediated by students' relative autonomy for studying. The importance of defining autonomy as an intraindividual, phenomenological experience versus an interpersonal, culturally bounded value is discussed.

Our objective was to identify the optimal method to assess reduced muscle mass (RMM) using the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) approach and investigate the roles of the GLIM approach in nutrition assessment and survival prediction in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. During a median follow-up period of 4.2 (4.0, 4.4) years, a development cohort of 3612 CRC patients with a mean age of 64.09 ± 12.45 years was observed, as well as an external validation cohort of 875 CRC patients. Kaplan–Meier curves and multivariate Cox regression were adopted to analyze the association between GLIM-diagnosed malnutrition and the overall survival (OS) of CRC patients. A nomogram predicting individualized survival was constructed based on independent prognostic predictors. The concordance index, calibration curve, and decision curve were applied to appraise the discrimination, accuracy, and clinical efficacy of the nomogram, respectively. Patients diagnosed with severe malnutrition based on either the mid-arm muscle circumference (MAMC) or body weight-standardized hand grip strength (HGS/W) method had the highest mortality hazard ratio (HR, 1.51; 95% CI, 1.34–1.70; p < 0.001). GLIM-defined malnutrition was diagnosed in 47.6% of patients. Severe malnutrition was an independent mortality risk factor for OS (HR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.10–1.42; p < 0.001). The GLIM nomogram showed good performance in predicting the survival of CRC patients and was clinically beneficial. Our findings support the effectiveness of GLIM in diagnosing malnutrition and predicting OS in CRC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]